Uncontrolled autoimmune disease can cause serious complications that can become life-threatening if left untreated.
Many of these autoimmune diseases increase your risk of mortality (death) and could become life-threatening if not treated properly so it's important to talk to your doctor about getting evaluated or find a doctor who will (it's worth it). Many people are left untreated because they are not thoroughly evaluated and it takes years for them to get diagnosed! This delays treatment for years which may lead to these serious complications. A study found that the mortality rate was higher in women and increased exponentially with age.
This list of complications was complied from several of the most common autoimmune diseases including:
Hashimoto's Hypothyroidism
Graves' Disease
Type 1 Diabetes
Psoriasis
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Systemic Lupus Erythematosus
Multiple Sclerosis
Ulcerative Colitis
Crohn's Disease
Sjogren's Disease
Celiac Disease
Idiopathic Thrombocytopenia
Ankylosing Spondylitis
These are the serious complications that many of them had in common:
Cardiovascular: Heart Attacks, Strokes, High Blood Pressure, Anemia
Metabolic: Type 2 Diabetes, Malnutrition, High Cholesterol
Chronic Kidney Diseases: Kidney Scarring, Kidney Failure
Cancer: Lymphomas, Myeloma, Tumors
Eye Complications: Dry eyes, Blurred vision, Eye inflammation (uveitis), Retinopathy, Scleritis- can cause permanent damage to your eye & vision
Lung Complications: Pneumonia, Bronchitis, Lung Inflammation which may lead to scarring.
Brain/Neurological Complications: Encephalopathy, Alzheimer's/Dementia, Seizures
Musculoskeletal Complications: Osteoporosis, decreased motor function, hands/feet deformation
Infertility
Immune Dysregulation: Chronic untreated autoimmune disease can literally change your immune system cells and their function. This can make some forms of natural treatment that would normally be very effective for an autoimmune diseases, possibly not effective for you. This is one of the main reasons to not wait for treatment.
So if you have an autoimmune disease,
what are you waiting for?!
Most of the conventional doctors will only prescribe you medications because that is all they know when it comes to treating an autoimmune disease. These medications suppress your immune system and can actually drive your pathology deeper into a diseased state which makes getting into remission even harder. Medications also cause a number of side effects from suppressing your immune system. Most of these doctors know that medications alone are not going to turn this autoimmune boat around. It's just managing your symptoms and that's the best they can do, but you can go even further than that...
You want to correct WHY your body got sick in the first place!
This happens by addressing the main source of the issue (your immune system) and changing your internal environment (what’s going on in your body) from the inside out.
You are going to be creating the best environment possible for your body to heal. This is when you start to notice less pain, better digestion, more energy, better sleep, less anxiety and depression because your internal environment is changing and moving towards a healing state.
When I work with patients we dive right into my process that identifies your autoimmune triggers that are causing your immune system to attack you, remove those triggers, and give your body what it needs to heal which supports its own ability to heal from the inside out.
This is what creates long-lasting health.
This is available to you now if you want it and ready to make a change. Come check out my program which is designed to help autoimmune adults address the real reason your body is attacking you & get you healthier faster. Stop suffering & let's go!
References:
Mitratza M, Klijs B, Hak AE, Kardaun JWPF, Kunst AE. Systemic autoimmune disease as a cause of death: mortality burden and comorbidities. Rheumatology (Oxford). 2021 Mar 2;60(3):1321-1330. doi: 10.1093/rheumatology/keaa537. PMID: 32944773; PMCID: PMC7937014.